by Gregg Loomis
“There’s a difference?”
” Si. Difference.”
The professor ignored his coffee to speak rapidly to Maria. His gesticulations confirmed Jason’s belief that an Italian unfortunate enough to lose both arms would be struck dumb also.
When he had finished, or at least subsided, Maria said, “There really is-was-a Hades, complete with River Styx and all. It was the place of departed spirits, a place of darkness, of heat and volcanic activity, hence the fire and brimstone the Christians associate with hell.”
Jason leaned back in his chair, unconvinced. “If it was real, where was it?”
“Baia, or in the old Roman Latin, Baiae.”
“The place in the article.”
She nodded.
“But how-”
Eno interrupted with another stream of italian.
When he finished, Maria said, “General Agrippa blocked it in, perhaps on the orders of Augustus Caesar, his friend and patron. That would have been sometime a.d. 12 or before.”
Coffee completely forgotten, Jason rested his chin on open palms, elbows on the table. “You mean they sealed it off?”
She shook her head. “No, they tried to completely fill it in. Like Nero’s Golden House in Rome.”
He shook his head.
“When Nero died, years after Augustus, Vespasian filled the palace with dirt. It’s been excavated for only a few years. Hades at Baia was the same, filled in.”
“Then how…”
She held up a hand, rushing on. “A chemical engineer, an Englishman by the name of Robert Paget, retired to Baia and became interested in the local antiquities. In
1962 he and a native crew excavated part of it. They could work only in fifteen-minute shifts because of the heat and the gases, but he cleared the passageway to an underground river, the Styx. Along the way were sacrificial altars-”
“Gases?” Jason’s interest quickened.
“They did no analysis, but there was some kind of gas that made them sleepy as well as prone to hallucinations.”
“Ethylene?” Jason was twisting his cup around on the tabletop.
Maria shrugged. “Possibly. They were amateur archeol-• ogists, not geologists.”
Eno was following the exchange closely. “The Inglese, Paget, he want to find Greek Hades, no geologist.”
Jason straightened up, palms flat on the table. “Okay, so it looks like I’ll have to go to… where?”
“Baia,” Maria and Eno said in unison.
“Not so easy,” Eno added. “After Paget explore there, Italian government…” He made a motion of touching his hands together in silent applause. “How you…?”
“The Italian government shut up the entrances, said it was too dangerous,” Maria said.
“Nobody’s been in there since 1962?” Jason was incredulous.
Eno explained something to Maria, who turned to Jason. “Another archaeologist, Robert Temple, convinced the authorities to let him explore further in 2001. He reported the gas levels had subsided, as had the intense heat reported by Paget. He took some pictures and wrote a book about it, Netherworld. Then the government sealed it off again.”
Jason drained the remains of what was by now very cold espresso. “Why? I’d think the archeological value of the real Hades would be worth keeping it open.”
Eno motioned to the waiter for refills and joined in. “Government say too dangerous. My guess, Church wanted closed.”
“Despite what the politicians say, the Catholic Church has tremendous influence on Italian politics,” Maria explained. “Having a secular or pagan model of hell open for inspection would not be something the Holy Father would have supported.”
Jason thought about that for a moment. “According to Eno’s book, or at least the English summary of it, this place at Baia was filled with hallucinogenic gases, which a sect of scheming priests used to basically fleece people who believed they could meet the dead. The gases were there naturally, so the priests created Hades centuries before Christ. But why not in Greece?”
“Cumae oldest Greek city in Italy,” Eno said.
“Besides,” Maria added, “they had little choice. Just the right gas combination was at Baia, so they had to create the Netherworld there. It was probably the only place in the Greek world with just the right characteristics: a cavern, gases, an underground river, and easy accessibility.”
Jason nodded. “Disney World for wealthy ancients.”
Maria lifted her head to nod thanks to the waiter as he set another cup in front of her and whisked away the old one. “Natural gases that were the product of a system of underground volcanic activity.”
“Part of the ‘fire and brimstone’ of the Christian hell, as Eno noted in his book,” Jason said, exchanging his cup for the fresh one. “The physical evidence indicates that whatever minerals were involved in the Bering Sea incident and the Georgia National Forest came from around Naples, so I’d have to guess the ethylene blend did, too.”
Maria dunked the sugar-encrusted stick that came with her coffee. “Which raises a truly interesting question.”
No doubt the same question that had been nagging at Jason’s subconscious, an unexpressed idea that had first lurked in the back of his mind like a wild animal at the edge of a campfire until his conversation with Adrian.
Maria voiced the issue Jason had thought about since Adrian had made his suggestion. “Why would the terrorists go to the trouble to find the source of a hallucinogenic gas? Why not simply kill their victims rather than gassing them first?”
“These people want to make a statement. Having something from the earth incapacitate the victims, in their minds, is a sort of revenge by nature.”
“But whatever it is does not kill anyone,” Maria protested. “These men, these eco…?”
“Ecological terrorists,” Jason supplied.
“These men do the actual murder of helpless people.”
Jason leaned back in his chair. “There’s no understanding the thought process of lunatics, fanatics, but making a natural product of the earth they believe their victims are destroying makes the ecology-nature-a partner in revenging what they see as an evil done to the earth.”
Both Maria and Eno were giving him skeptical looks.
“Okay, Okay, so I’m just guessing. We may get the real answer at Baia.”
“Or Cumae,” Eno added.
“Cumae?” Both Jason and Maria were staring at the professor.
“Cumae,” he repeated. “The gases, they could have come from there. The Sibyl, she maybe… how you say? High? Yes, she maybe high on some sort of gas when she give future statements.”
“Your book suggested epilepsy, not gas,” Jason noted.
Eno shrugged. “A guess. Who for sure know why make statements?”
“Prophecies,” Maria corrected.
“Prophecies,” Eno continued, grinning. “She only one high in Vatican.”
Jason looked at Maria, puzzled.
“The Sistine Chapel,” she explained, “Michelangelo included the Cumae Sibyl in the group of prophets around the edge of the ceiling. According to readers of Virgil, she foretold the coming of Christ; at least, the emperor Constantine thought so. She’s the only pagan figure on the ceiling.”
Jason absorbed this information before saying, “Another question: how did Alazar, the Moslem who sold whatever this is to Eco, find out about gases in an ancient Greek religious site, one that wasn’t even in Greece?”
Eno shrugged. “Arabs long know Greek culture,” the professor began before lapsing into Italian.
Jason waited impatiently for Maria to translate.
“When Rome fell to various hordes of barbarians,” she began, watching Eno, “much of the Greco-Roman knowledge was in danger of being lost, in addition to what the Greeks and Romans had learned from the Egyptians, Babylonians, Sumerians, and whoever else. A lot of wisdom was lost forever. The Moorish traders in the Mediterranean, the Arabs alon
g the ancient Silk Road, the Byzantine, then Ottoman emperors saved what they could use. Had it not been for them, Greek and Roman sciences-and the ancient knowledge before that-in medicine, astronomy, mathematics, would have been lost. We would not know the geometry of Euclid, Ptolemy’s geography or astronomy, or Pliny’s history. During the so-called Dark Ages, much was forgotten that had originated in Europe and been learned by the Muslim merchants. It was only during the crusades that some of this knowledge began to filter back west. Even then, most forms of science were bitterly opposed by the Church, hindering even further the restoration of ancient learning in the Christian world. Eno says he wouldn’t be surprised if the Arabs haven’t known of Baia and Cumae longer than current Western civilization. After all, the stories of Virgil and Homer, the plays of Euripides, were known and enjoyed in the Mideast while most of Europe was divided into tiny, warring principalities run by kings who could not even read their own languages. An Arab arms dealer was only passing along something adopted by his culture a long time ago.”
Jason was quiet for a few seconds. He turned to Eno. “Any chance of the government giving us grief about going down into whatever it is in Baia?”
Eno shrugged, a man asked a question to which there was no apparent answer. “They have it closed, but I do not know if they guard it. Entry is prohibited.”
If the country observed that law to the same degree as traffic laws, there would be no problem.
“Obviously somebody’s been there. That’s where the ethylene seems to have come from,” Maria observed.
“Perhaps,” Eno said. “Many such places are closed but not guarded. This one may not be watched by the authorities, but these people you seek will be watching, I theenk.”
Jason said, “I’ll keep that in mind when Adrian and I get there.”
“Adrian, you, and I,” she added.
“Thought you were through as soon as you’d helped me with Eno here.”
“And miss a chance to observe an underground volcanic system that, with two exceptions, has been closed off from study for two thousand years?”
Chapter Thirty-two
Albergo del San Giovanni
Via Roma, Turin
The next morning
Jason’s head was buried alternately in the International Herald Tribune, the New York Times, and the Washington Post’s English-language newspaper distributed throughout Europe. He was sitting in the hotel’s small dining room, where a buffet breakfast of breads, sausages, fruit, jams, cereals, and juices was lined up on white tablecloths. Across the table, Maria was finishing her third coffee.
Jason lowered his paper long enough to glance at the one inches away. Like an old married couple, he thought, each too engrossed in the morning’s papers to engage in conversation. Just as well. Other than ecological extremists trying to kill them, exploring hell, or last night’s sexual acrobatics, what did they have to talk about?
An article on the front page drew him back to the news. He read, then re-read it, then sat in silent thought for a moment. He folded the Herald Tribune’s front page and shoved it over the top of Maria’s paper like an invading army breaching a castle wall.
She lowered the barrier long enough to give him a peevish look. “I thought you read that paper only for the comics.”
“It’s the only one that still carries ‘Calvin and Hobbes.’”
“Oh, that makes a difference.”
He used the hand not holding the paper to point. “Look at this.”
Washington -The president announced a new environmental initiative yesterday. A previously undisclosed conference is scheduled for next week.
The president and members of his cabinet will meet with leaders of various ecological and conservationists groups, such as the Sierra Club and the American Green Party, largely organizations that have been critical of the president’s handling of such issues as global warming, oil exploration in Alaska, and relaxing of clean air and water standards.
A White House spokesperson said any organized group with an interest in the environment will be welcomed on a space-available basis.
As an act the same spokesperson described as “showing good faith,” the president intends to pardon those accused of crimes in the name of conservation, such as those who are presently charged with trespassing on national forest lands by chaining themselves to trees to be cut, or blocking access to oil fields. Asked if this pardon would include violent crimes, the White House appears to be undecided.
Senator Sott (D-Mass.) described the announcement as “A shockingly transparent and cynical effort by the environment’s sworn enemy to drum up votes from those he has ignored too long.”
The exact site of the conference in Washington has yet to be announced.
Frowning like a primary school teacher accommodating one of her less bright pupils, Maria scanned the article. “So?”
“The man’s nuts,” he said. “He’ll never make peace with those people any more than you could placate a rattlesnake.”
She finally laid her paper down, regarding him with a mixture of annoyance and amusement. “Your president is ‘nuts’? And to think how many Americans got angry when we Europeans first made the observation. Do you think he is any different from any other politician? A politician would be willing to forgive and forget the biggest mass murder in your history if he thinks it will get him reelected.”
“Like Jimmy Carter trying to negotiate with Iran to free American hostages? It lost him the next election.”
She smiled. “Perhaps now it is your role to give political advice?”
She stood, went to the buffet and selected a pear, and returned to her chair. She took a noisy, moist bite before sitting down. “And so?”
He put the paper down, subject exhausted. “If Adrian and I go…”
She held the pear out to him for him to sample. “If you, Adrian, and I go.”
The fruit seemed to turn to a mellow syrup in his mouth. Like most Italian fruit, it was fresh, flavorful, and just ripe enough-So good that Jason suspected there was an official Italian fruit manufacturing agency that produced synthetic goods. He’d never sampled anything that good from Mother Nature.
He swallowed before saying, “Your choice. Eno was right: if Cumae or Baia is a supply of the gas, somebody will be watching.”
“Is that a fact?”
Neither Jason nor Maria had seen Adrian emerge from his hiding place behind another paper in the far corner of the room.
“Truly alert you are, laddie,” he gloated to Jason. “Coulda killed you a dozen times. Ye’re na’ payin’ attention t’er surroundin’s.” He pointed to the half-eaten pear. “Or too busy wid the forbidden fruit in this garden.”
The SAS man was right: Jason had given scant notice to the other diners, any one of whom could have been Eglov himself hiding behind a copy of la Republica. He had felt so good, so happy as a result of last night’s lovemaking, he had momentarily forgotten a darker world where inattention was frequently a capital offense.
As Adrian planted an avuncular kiss on Maria’s cheek, Jason dared envision, just for a second, a life where it wasn’t necessary to get neck cramps looking over your shoulder. A life… well, a life pretty much like what he and Laurin had planned before she was taken from him.
The reflections shattered like crystal dropped on bricks when Jason realized Adrian was asking questions.
“Was Professor Calligini helpful? Be we off, then? Where to? Baia? Will we be needin’ special kit?”
It was the latter question that had brought Jason back to reality. “According to the last explorer, the gas wasn’t a problem. Still, I asked Maria to request air tanks so we won’t be taking the risk. They should be waiting when we get there.”
“And where would ‘there’ be?” Adrian wanted to know.
“Naples. We can be there in a few hours.”
As they left the room, Jason looked back to where the Herald Tribune lay in the chair he had occupied. There was something
about that meeting in Washington that he knew without being aware of his knowledge, something… Past experience told him the thought was not yet ripe enough to fall into his full conscious. It would become clear in its own good time.
He only hoped that would be soon enough for… what?
Chapter Thirty-three
114 Taylor Street
Queens, New York
The same day
Rassavitch had no trouble blending into the enclave of Russian emigrants. Every evening and twice on Sunday he attended the concrete-block building that had begun life as a grocery store and now served as an Orthodox church. It still had a faint odor of spoiled fruit. He was a religious man, a man convinced he had survived the communists to serve God by restoring the Master’s will on earth.
He did God’s will, and he had been called here by like-thinkers to make certain others did, too. At the moment, God was displeased with the use being made of the Earth, the despoliation of His greatest gift to man. It was far past time someone, some group, wreaked vengeance on those who defiled the Earth.
Rassavitch had finally found just such an organization. That was God’s will, too.
If there was one thing distinctly Russian, it was a peasant’s love for the land, a commodity for centuries owned exclusively by the State, by the Czars, then the Party. Now, at least in theory, any Russian could own a few hectares. The catch-and in Russia there was always a catch-was that only the wealthy could afford to buy, the very people who raped the earth with poisonous fertilizers, who polluted the rivers with chemicals and defiled even the air all had to breathe.
The injustice of it made Rassavitch grind his teeth.
But the Russians here didn’t seem to care. Oh, a few of the old babushka tended thumbnail-sized patches of sickly vegetables, but most of the populace had no interest in the land that had been the sustenance of the Russian people since before the czars. Instead, the young people would rather work at jobs in the city and spend their leisure time wearing American blue jeans, the dye from which Rassavitch was sure polluted some stream, and listening to the noise they called music.